


Between You and All Harm

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Read My Lips [45]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 12:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6518920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: <i>author's choice, author's choice, in thunder and love, it is done / here i stand, between you and all harm</i>. Dave Sheppard stands between John Sheppard and his father's wrath and pain. Set pre-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between You and All Harm

Dave came awake sharply when he heard his father shouting. He rolled out of bed, pulled on his clothes, and headed for the stairs. Patrick Sheppard was many things, but discomposed was not one of them. Not even at home. He kept it all behind closed doors. That was what a good Sheppard Man did. Dave tip-toed down the stairs, careful not to interrupt his father, and went to stand in the kitchen doorway.  
  
John was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal and taking a stab at the crossword in the paper.  
  
And Dad - Dad was screaming at him.  
  
“This is all your fault, you stupid child! If you’d just been like David, if you’d just followed the rules - they’re damn simple rules. You had no reason to go out that night. Just because your mother was soft, loved you, because she let you have fun with your stupid little band, didn’t mean you had to go to that party. Those weren’t the right kind of kids to be around, and you knew it. You knew it and you didn’t listen when I told you and you went and there was drinking and because you’re a coward, because you’ve always been too afraid to live up to the Sheppard name you called your mother, and she came to rescue you, because she always loved you too much, loved you more than she loved the rest of us, and then you _left_ her, you left her to _die_ \--”  
  
John lifted his head, saw Dave, smiled.  
  
Dave smiled back automatically, and John frowned, because he’d always been able to see through Dave’s publicity smiles.  
  
“Dad, did you need something?” Dave asked, signing, because it was polite.  
  
Dad blinked. “David. I didn’t see you there.”  
  
“I heard shouting, heard my name. Thought you wanted me for something.”  
  
Patrick Sheppard would never have shouted for his son like that. He’d have used the intercom, like a polite, rational person.  
  
Dad swallowed hard, catching his breath.  
  
John turned to him and smiled cautiously. “Hey, Dad. Didn’t see you there,” he signed, mouthing the words for Dave’s benefit. “Want some cereal?”  
  
“Just some coffee,” Dad muttered, not signing, and Dave saw the twist of John’s mouth, knew he’d only caught half of it, but then Dad turned his back on them, went to the coffee maker, and Dave sat down beside John to check his progress on the crossword.  
  
Dave wondered how many times this had happened since he’d gone off to Harvard, how long John had been living with their father’s vitriol and didn’t even know it. Dave didn’t ask, didn’t want to find out how much John knew. Instead he was careful to always be around John when Dad was in the room, and when spring break was over, he talked to his roommate, whose uncle was the Dean of Admissions at Stanford, and put in a good word for John. John would be a senior next year, and Dad would expect him to go to Harvard.  
  
John needed to be as far away from their father as possible.  
  
When the offer letter from Stanford came a year later, Dave stood in the kitchen doorway and saw John’s eyes go wide with surprise, and then joy, because he hadn’t even applied there, but he was good enough that they’d come calling for him. Dad turned six different shades of red and opened his mouth to loose a tirade at the back of John’s head, that John would never hear, and Dave stepped between his father and his brother and said,  
  
“Dad, let him go.”  
  
Dad’s hands curled into white fists.  
  
“Hit me if you need to, but let him go.”  
  
Dad’s eyes went wide, and his fists uncurled. “David -”  
  
“He didn’t do anything wrong, two years ago. He went to a party. He wasn’t drinking. He wasn’t breaking any laws.” Dave swallowed hard. “And Mom loved us just as much as she loved him. She’d have done the same thing for any one of us.”  
  
“I would never hit you.”  
  
“Hitting me would hurt less than those words would hurt him, if he could hear you,” Dave said quietly. “If you don’t let him go, you’ll lose him.”  
  
“Every Sheppard Man since -”  
  
“And you’ll lose me, too.”  
  
Dad rocked back on his heels like he’d been struck.  
  
“Let him go,” Dave said in a low voice, and braced himself for the storm that would follow.  
  
John never heard a thing, but years later, over drinks at their father’s funeral, he told Dave that he saw.


End file.
